Helice Shooting – Clay Pigeon from Hell

Have you ever Helice shoot?, Or even heard of it?
Don’t worry not many sportsman have heard of it either.
This game is like shooting clays with the unpredictability of bird hunting, which is what it should be.
This game will challenge the most experienced trap shooters. Here’s how it’s done.

Origins
This game originated in Belgium during the 1960s and the name goes by 2 other names, Electrocibles and ZZ bird shoot. Depending on who you talk to ZZ refers to zig-zag pattern that the targets take. The other says, the pigeon target (Zurito) was made of zinc. Helice shooting is more popular overseas than in the U.S.
First impression seems to be another form of clay pigeon shoot, the obvious differences is the target. Its made of two different plastic pieces. The witness cap and the propellers.

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Clay Pigeon from Hell
With this flamboyant target design which makes it fly at high speed in an unpredictable path resulting in a fun way to shoot clay pigeons.
The shooting is done on pure instinct not from a pre-pattern flight that most clay shooters are accustom to. This may be the closest way to shooting a live bird without being out in the field with your dog.

Besides the target being different, the setup is also different and exciting. There are five launchers and each one holding two helice targets. Shooters only take on five targets at a time, sometimes there are variant that utilizes seven launchers.
Just like with clay shooting, once in the shooting stand, the shooter calls pull to release the targets. You get two shots to hit each target. This is where helice varies dramatically from any type of clay shooting.
The helice targets are rotated rapidly by the machine and once released, thanks to those plastic wings, they take off on an unpredictable flight path that can’t be replicated by any clay target.

Helice targets flies anywhere from high and fast or low to the ground. You never know which way a helice target is going. It’s easy to see why this style was made because it closely resembles hunting live pigeons or doves.
The basic idea behind the whole thing is that the launching of the targets is completely randomized. You never know which one is going to launch next.
With the extra target on each machine, the shooter can’t predict the next launch.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> now what

Scoring
By now you may have figured out that Helice scoring is different from trap or skeet shooting. There is more to it than just hitting the plastic targets. In the field you’ll notice a semicircular fence in the back of helice ring. This fence isn’t there for looks, its part of the game.
When you score its not just hitting the target, you need to separate the witness cap from the propeller portion and hopefully (must) the cap fall inside the fence to count. If the witness cap falls over the back of the fence, no score.
What if the witness cap doesn’t separate? Bad luck, its considered a miss. And, you can’t shoot the target once it crosses the fence.

As you can tell, even experienced trap shooters who try helice will be humbled. It’s hard enough to hit such an erratic, fast target, but there are so many other intangibles in play that you can do little to change.

A helice match consists of just 30 targets, but because of the unpredictable nature of the targets, a perfect score is very rare, even with professional shooters. Are you game enough to try this?